Child Support

June 20th, 2018

I was married before. We have two children that are now well into their teens. I love my children; that I can’t and will never deny. They were the only best part of that relationship.

What do I remember of my marriage with that woman? Her parting words that I can’t ever forget and they keep constantly ringing through my subconscious, making me cringe with anger and hate: “I’m going to take you for child support and they’re going to take all of your money.”

Quote — end quote.

Add to her annoying high-pitch voice and you get the picture.

At the time the child support started, I was making more money. I have, of course, since lost that job and they have been adding arrears into the thousands. Honestly, I have never owed so much to one source in all my life. I have tried to reduce it when I had a lesser job. The judge flat out said: ‘No.’

Really. I couldn’t afford the payments and it was ramping up astronomically back then and he said, without reason, just No.

To this day, I think that is where I started hating people.

I have made attempts to reduce it or change things but the system is thick with red tape. I would have to go back to NY and it’s a complicated mess on purpose. The quest to be a lawyer also includes rectifying alot of this bullshit, by the way.

So what has happened ever since:

I lost my drivers license.

I can’t get a passport.

I have ‘dead-beat’ status arrears that are heavy and impossible to pay off at $12.00/hr.

A long time ago, I asked the ex to help me reduce or remove this child support order. She said no.

I think back then I was near going to kill her. Why? Because I am constantly in my children’s life REGARDLESS. I give them money directly. I even gave them debit cards that allow me to give them money they can use.

Why don’t I pay the child support directly?

Well, let’s go back about eight years ago. I had a good job that paid about $16.00 an hour. Child support started taking their payments and one day my children stayed with me as they usually did in the summer or holidays. They didn’t have appropriate coats for the weather or even decent clothing.

So I asked, “what is your mother doing with the money she’s getting?” I shouldn’t have involved them in my struggles with that bitch but I was fed up. She talks bad about me to them and I usually don’t reciprocate by calling her a bitch to them. But this time, I let my son see what got taken from my checks for child support and opened his eyes to the mother he has. Based on what he said and the lack of stuff I see them have, the money I sent wasn’t being used for them.

Then he confirmed stories I already knew about her: spending money on other people and parties to make herself look like an important person.

She has a job, but when all this started, you got to understand, she ‘took’ my children from New York (where we used to live) and moved to Albany, GA. For about two months, she tried to live off my child support payments, without telling me where she went. If I kept a journal of those events, you would have witnessed me very destroyed at the time. Basically, we divorced, she hit me with child support, when I came to pick up the kids on the weekends like I always did, she was gone. Moved. Left without telling me.

That was when I used some of my inherent missing person’s skills. I found them through a logical set of questions/asking people who didn’t want to tell me. Got a lawyer and forced her back to answer for taking my kids across state lines. The most that happened was I stopped her from moving any further without my permission. She kidnapped my children and got away with it and I’m still paying.

So, flash forward to now and I don’t want her dead as much as I used to but child support still hangs over my head. I don’t ‘willingly’ report it to the services because they often take more than I can afford to live on plus I give my money to the kids directly for the things they need and it’s never as much as they need to take.

I don’t know if that amount will ever get paid, so I don’t even bother.

Meanwhile, there are times, like now, where it catches up to me. They started taking money from this little job I have, cutting my income down to more than half. If the job wasn’t worth going to with what I got, it sure isn’t worth going for less than half.

But this is the constant rotation of it all: Find a job, child support starts in, quit the job because I can’t afford to go to the job or live off of it, find another job, repeat.

I can’t answer for other fathers not doing for their children, but I do. My kids know it and I’m deadlocked into a system that won’t reduce the arrears, release my driver’s license to get to a job if I needed it and it keeps rising. Add a bitch ex-wife that just wants “all my money” and you can see why many ex-wives end up dead.

I have no sympathy when I hear of an ex-wife murdered by her ex. You don’t know the buttons that bitch probably pushed. If you knew the buttons my ex pushed, you’d want her to die, too.

So I’m in a position where if my kids need money, I have to direct them to their mother that received a payment. How can I give them any more directly if she’s getting it?

This sends me in a frantic need to get/find a better job. But, because of my lack of a degree, I couldn’t get a better job — and this brings us to where we are today: me striving for a better life with a degree, thus a potentially better job.

Let’s be clear: if I was getting paid at a job that allowed me to have a life and pay this child support bill, I would be fine with it. I don’t WANT to pay child support to this particular whore, but I am WILLING to pay it if I can make sure I can survive too. What’s the point of paying child support if I can’t survive to go to work to earn the money? Which I will never understand why they suspend driver’s licenses. How do you get to a job without a license? Reasonably. Don’t say mass transit because fuck mass transit if you have a car.

I’m venting. I have a lot more to say on this ex-wife bitch thing but I’m trying to stay centered. The plan has not changed. In fact, I’m really just writing this as documentation to showcase the overall pressure I’m going through. To underscore exactly WHY I am pushing for this degree.

But the degree isn’t coming tomorrow. Or the next week. I have another year and ½ at best before I graduate and can utilize the degree.

So, if I wanted law, I said I was going for a paralegal certification. Get certified and get a better job, right?

But the classes for paralegal cost more than I currently make now that child support is being taken. Not that I suspected this would happen, but I am so used to things falling apart when things are going good, I prepared a contingency plan should I not be able to get the paralegal classes which is …

A+ Certification. I’m in an IT degree program BECAUSE I wanted a safety if law didn’t go through. I’m studying the A+ Certification BECAUSE I can’t afford the paralegal certification classes yet. The A+ lessons are free with my education at AIU. All I have to do is pay the exam testing fee which is like $97 each (I’ll need two of them).

Get certified and I can start looking at $16+/hr jobs. Preferably into the $20/hr jobs repairing PCs and technical support, which I have experience in. But my resume jumps from job to job so much I have to really develop one that will be the ultimate IT support specialist version that takes advantage of the certification to come and the bachelor’s degree to come.

What if I don’t get A+ certified? What if I fail the exam? I’m already tired as it is working six days at a job on my feet all night and with a small window to study.

Do I quit this job giving my ex the big “go fuck yourself’? Then I’ll be out of even that little bit of weekly money to even pay for the exam; putting more pressure on my wife again.

Honestly, I’m sticking to the plan.

The plan is working. I just have to notch back how I spend money with the little I have.

I’ll also have to drop down to five days instead of six days a week at this cornball job. A touch less money but more time to study and work on classwork.

I’ll still give a little money directly to my kids. Just not as much as before, I guess. Simply can’t afford it.

THANK GOD I bought that guitar when I said I would. Seeing the child support take a majority of my money, I would have not bought it, knowing it was a frivolous purchase. It’s actually essential. You need something to make yourself happy. I want to learn the guitar and, through all this stress of trying to make more money, get a better education, child support, etc,… I need this artistic ‘me’ time.

Keeping the child support rolling keeps the system off me indirectly. It doesn’t pay off the arrears, but it’s documented SOMETHING is being paid and that isn’t a bad thing. If .. WHEN … I get certified, I’ll look for work first within the same temp agency I currently work for. This way, the support order stays consistent and I just have to have income requirements that will satisfy both the support and myself.

Otherwise, get certified and just find another job — making the support order find me.

Heavy sigh. Regardless, nothing changes. It was a few short months ago I didn’t have a dime to my name and was unemployed.

I’m employed with less money weekly — but I have money. Now, it’s just up to me to weave through life with a saving/spending control system that won’t make me feel broke until I get the certification. For instance, if I need to pay for things like the exam that’s $97, I don’t use the whole check for the exam fee. I save $50 this week. $50 next week. I split all bills I need to pay in half and storage cash when I can.

The bitch did not win. I am not as angry and I’m still doing well in school, going to learn the guitar, going to get certified and currently happily married.

I just have to stay on track and keep telling myself: the bitch did not win.

I’m winning.

360

May 29th, 2018

You know, I might just be pulling off the greatest turn-around in history. The degree and other future happenings not only look probable but due. Verily expected and grounded in reality.

Even though I spent a lot of this journal swamped in depression, spurts of anger, rage against people and myself, occasionally suicidal and in debt with off and on again employment — the core reason I started the journal in the first place is bearing fruit. Regardless of the inner turmoil, the plan is working. I can even go on to say, the plan that is working is healing the inner turmoil.

In a little bit, I’ll be in my sophomore year of college with an excellent GPA. I am considering a paralegal course on the side to achieve certification to help toward the LSAT and law school — as well as a means to gainful employment of a professional level. Something to get me out of the ‘Walmarts’ and soda warehouse blue collar sector and make ‘real’ money.

Should any of that fail, the backup is Information Technology. With the IT degree, I can still get great pay in this era where digital investigations are necessary. I’m considering taking the CompTIA A+ certification to complement the IT degree.

Should both succeed, I will have a shield of knowledge and experience to be more than the man I was when I started this journal.

I can actually start formulating a proper resume that is really who I am that I could be proud of.

So what still needs to be done?

1) Maintain the job I currently have. It doesn’t pay much, it’s just sweeping the floors, but it helps with child support, paying minor bills, saving some money and paying for the CompTIA A+ and the paralegal courses.

2) Keep looking for tech work to replace the current job. Start fleshing out the career path in IT exclusively, if possible. Nothing customer based. I don’t want to do IT support for stupid customers that think putting their phones in rice is a great idea.

3) Take the CompTIA exam. Never hurts to have it.

4) Take the paralegal course and get certified. Solidifies one potential guaranteed future.

5) Take my wife out more. We’re going to Savannah next week. I’m sure we can find other places to go.

6) Consider getting back to archery.

7) Buy all books and study material for the LSAT.

I’ll have to keep working my way back up the social thing to want to go to a lodge or Toastmasters. No rush. The paralegal course looks like it emphasizes on speaking and communication with others anyway so I’ll wait for that.

All in all — as of this moment — I feel stable mentally, with ‘adult grown-up’ career and financial stability on approach.

What I hope anyone gets from this journal is exactly what is happening: Make plans in life, see things fail, make adjustments, come up with new ideas that work and come close to the original goals as possible. Losing your mind along the way, but finding where to stabilize.

It’s been an incredible year.

Paralegal

May 16th, 2018

The writing stopped. I needed time to pack away and/or destroy everything relevant to that creative end. It wasn’t working. I thought I could have fun doing it, but the truth is, with no one reading — no one reviewing — there is no fun in it. A creative lobotomy — that side of me had to go. It was killing me.

Back to this lifeless, but eventually lucrative, law career decision with no other diversions than to play a video game or two during downtimes.

The career path has led me to explore, before law school, work as a paralegal. For that, I need to be certified and I found a 1-year course at Kennesaw State University that can provide the study and the certification. I was looking at a course at Emory but they expected a bachelor’s degree FIRST in order to take the same course, for the same certification.

I’m still doing fine in AIU with a GPA of 3.92. Environmental science fucked me. I inquired about disputing past grades. Because I did not discuss it with the teacher and open a dispute at the time, it wouldn’t be worth it. My fault. At the time, I did not think it was worth it. But, seeing that I am doing great with my essay’s now, as to say, I should not have had a problem with the previous essays, I’m feeling I should have slapped that bitch for grading me so poorly.

Well, I have one week left in this course, and I have all A’s.

Oh, I had an event with my daughter this past weekend. My daughter told my ex I was going back to school and how well I was doing. My ex was proud of me and said: “I always knew you could do it”.

She’s of that very educated, 6-figure variety. The problem wasn’t that she didn’t support educational endeavors. She never supported my creative endeavors. Not just her. My mother wasn’t interested either. Years upon years of my own lack of faith in myself based on negative feedback from those around me who didn’t even READ my work. My ex made up every excuse possible not to read anything until SOMEONE ELSE read it and reviewed it.

My writing was an uphill struggle. I knew I was talented. Just not supported and it’s in me to have self-hate and resentment about it. Meanwhile, kids like this get full support for whatever he’s doing since 11 years old:

https://www.vogue.com/article/food-recipe-eureka-flynn-mcgarry

It’s never about “he was a prodigy.” I was a prodigy in storytelling. Writing since 5-years old. Taught a few classes in creative writing. But I’m Black. No supportive family. No money. I can sum it up and wonder if I was ever any good at all and here we are at giving up and just focusing on going to law school. There. Saved you another paragraph of ranting. As for teaching creative writing again, I hate people too much now to even try to be caring in a classroom.

So, here’s the plan: I continue the work I’m doing in AIU. Continue to get the good grades. Get the Bachelor’s degree in 2020 for Information Technology. between now and the end of 2019, I take the Paralegal Course and get certified. This allows me to get work at a law firm with my final year getting the degree. Naturally, I let them know the intention to take the LSAT.

Getting a job as a Paralegal breaks me free of crap temp jobs like the one I should be starting any day now. That’s another story. I got the job but didn’t start yet.

Working as a paralegal is like pre-law realtime, plus being paid.

That’s the plan anyway. Left-side of the brain things work. All this shit about the law, working in law and going to law school will fall into my lap easier than my struggle to be a writer.

Even finding that better course at Kennesaw is an example of serendipitous momentum. I couldn’t get that kind of convenient momentum for my writing whatsoever. It’s hard to explain. It’s the little and big things. The writing was always a struggle with no one caring. Law pursuit? I hold out my hand and all things fall into place.

People are ‘proud of me’ suddenly. Including my mother. Were they not proud when I was writing? Fuck all of them. Every last fucking one of them.

Let the record show I don’t give a rats ass about law and it’s all about ‘people’ and you know how much I don’t give a fuck about people. Fucking lovely. I’m going to be the House M.D. of Law.